A Slap For The Major

: A Daughter Of The Sioux

The columns of Colonel Henry and Major Webb, as said "the Chief," had

united, and here were two men who could be counted on to push the

pursuit "for all they were worth." Hitherto, acting in the open country

and free from encumbrance, the Indians had been hard to reach. Now they

were being driven into their fastnesses among the mountains toward the

distant shelter whither their few wounded had been conveyed, and where

he old men, the women and children were in hiding. Now it meant that,

unless the troops could be confronted and thrown back, another transfer

of tepees and travois, ponies and dogs, wounded and aged would have to

be made. Lame Wolf had thought his people safe behind the walls of the

Big Horn and the shifting screen of warriors along the foothills, but

the blue skirmish lines pushed steadily on into the fringing pines,

driving the feathered braves from ridge to ridge, and Lame Wolf had

sense enough to see that here were leaders that "meant business" and

would not be held. Henry had ten veteran troops at his back when he

united with Webb, who led his own and the Beecher squadron, making

eighteen companies, or troops, of Horse, with their pack mules, all out

at the front, while the wagon train and ambulances were thoroughly

guarded by a big battalion of sturdy infantry, nearly all of them good

marksmen, against whose spiteful Springfields the warriors made only one

essay in force, and that was more than enough. The blue coats emptied

many an Indian saddle and strewed the prairie with ponies, and sent

Whistling Elk and his people to the right about in sore dismay, and then

it dawned on Lame Wolf that he must now either mislead the cavalry

leader,--throw him off the track, as it were,--or move the villages,

wounded, prisoners and all across the Big Horn river, where hereditary

foemen, Shoshone and Absaraka, would surely welcome them red-handed.



It was at this stage of the game he had his final split with Stabber.

Stabber was shrewd, and saw unerringly that with other columns out--from

Custer on the Little Horn and Washakie on the Wind River,--with

reinforcements coming from north and south, the surrounding of the Sioux

in arms would be but a matter of time. He had done much to get Lame Wolf

into the scrape and now was urging hateful measures as, unless they were

prepared for further and heavier losses, the one way out, and that way

was--surrender.



Now, this is almost the last thing the Indian will do. Not from fear of

consequences at the hands of his captors, for he well knows that,

physically, he is infinitely better off when being coddled by Uncle Sam

than when fighting in the field. It is simply the loss of prestige

among his fellow red men that he hates and dreads. Therefore, nothing

short of starvation or probable annihilation prompts him, as a rule, to

yield himself a prisoner. Stabber urged it rather than risk further

battle and further loss, but Stabber had long been jealous of the

younger chief, envied him his much larger following and his record as a

fighter, and Stabber, presumably, would be only too glad to see him

fallen from his high estate. They could then enjoy the hospitality of a

generous nation (a people of born fools, said the unreasoning and

unregenerate red man) all winter, and, when next they felt sufficiently

slighted to warrant another issue on the warpath, they could take the

field on equal terms. Lame Wolf, therefore, swore he'd fight to the

bitter end. Stabber swore he'd gather all his villagers, now herding

with those of Wolf; and, having segregated his sheep from the more

numerous goats, would personally lead them whither the white man could

not follow. At all events he made this quarrel the pretext for his

withdrawal with full five score fighting men, and Lame Wolf cursed him

roundly as the wretch deserved and, all short-handed now, with hardly

five hundred braves to back him, bent his energies to checking Henry's

column in the heart of the wild hill country.



And this was the situation when the general's first despatches were sent

in to Frayne,--this the last news to reach the garrison from the distant

front for five long days, and then one morning, when the snow was

sifting softly down, there came tidings that thrilled the little

community, heart and soul--tidings that were heard with mingled tears

and prayers and rejoicings, and that led to many a visit of

congratulation to Mrs. Hay, who, poor woman, dare not say at the moment

that she had known it all as much as twenty-four hours earlier, despite

the fact that Pete and Crapaud were banished from the roll of her

auxiliaries.



Even as the new couriers came speeding through the veil of falling

flakes, riding jubilantly over the wide-rolling prairie with their news

of victory and battle, the post commander at Fort Frayne was puzzling

over a missive that had come to him, he knew not how, mysterious as the

anarchists' warnings said to find their way to the very bedside of the

guarded Romanoffs. Sentry Number 4 had picked it up on his post an hour

before the dawn--a letter addressed in bold hand to Major Stanley Flint,

commanding Fort Frayne, and, presuming the major himself had dropped it,

he turned it over to the corporal of his relief, and so it found its way

toward reveille into the hands of old McGann, wheezing about his work of

building fires, and Michael laid it on the major's table and thought no

more about it until two hours later, when the major roused and read, and

then a row began that ended only with the other worries of his

incumbency at Frayne.



Secretly Flint was still doing his best to discover the bearer when came

the bold riders from the north with their thrilling news. Secretly, he

had been over at the guard-house interviewing as best he could, by the

aid of an unwilling clerk who spoke a little Sioux, a young Indian girl

whom Crabb's convalescent squad, four in number, had most unexpectedly

run down when sent scouting five miles up the Platte, and brought,

screaming, scratching and protesting back to Frayne. Her pony had been

killed in the dash to escape, and the two Indians with her seemed to be

young lads not yet well schooled as warriors, for they rode away

pellmell over the prairie, leaving the girl to the mercy of the

soldiers. Flint believed her to be connected in some way with the coming

of the disturbing note, which was why he compelled her detention at the

guard-house. Under Webb's regime she would have been questioned by

Hay, or some one of his household. Under Flint, no one of Hay's family

or retainers could be allowed to see her. He regarded it as most

significant that her shrillest screams and fiercest resistance should

have been reserved until just as her guardians were bearing her past the

trader's house. She had the little light prison room to herself all that

wintry morning, and there, disdainful of bunk or chair, enveloped in her

blanket, she squatted disconsolate, greeting all questioners with

defiant and fearless shruggings and inarticulate protest. Not a syllable

of explanation, not a shred of news could their best endeavors wring

from her. Yet her glittering eyes were surely in search of some one, for

she looked up eagerly every time the door was opened, and Flint was just

beginning to think he would have to send for Mrs. Hay when the couriers

came with their stirring news and he had to drop other affairs in order

to forward this important matter to headquarters.



Once again, it seems, Trooper Kennedy had been entrusted with

distinguished duty, for it was he who came trotting foremost up the

road, waving his despatch on high. A comrade from Blake's troop,

following through the ford, had turned to the left and led his horse up

the steep to the quarters nearest the flagstaff. This time there was no

big-hearted post commander to bid the Irishman refresh himself ad

libitum. Flint was alone at his office at the moment, and knew not this

strange trooper, and looked askance at his heterodox garb and war-worn

guise. Such laxity, said he to himself, was not permitted where he had

hitherto served, which was never on Indian campaign. Kennedy, having

delivered his despatches, stood mutely expectant of question and

struggling with an Irishman's enthusiastic eagerness to tell the details

of heady fight. But Flint had but one method of getting at facts--the

official reports--and Kennedy stood unnoticed until, impatient at last,

he queried:--



"Beg pardon, sir, but may we put up our horses?"



"Who's we?" asked the major, bluntly. "And where are the others?"



"Trigg, sir--Captain Blake's troop. He went to the captain's quarters

with a package."



"He should have reported himself first to the post commander," said the

major, who deemed it advisable to make prompt impression on these savage

hunters of savage game.



"Thim wasn't his ordhers, surr," said Kennedy, with zealous, but

misguided loyalty to his comrades and his regiment.



"No one has a right, sir, to give orders that are contrary in spirit to

the regulations and customs of the service," answered the commander,

with proper austerity. "Mr. Wilkins," he continued, as the burly

quartermaster came bustling in, "have the other trooper sent to report

at once to me and let this man wait outside till I am ready to see him."



And so it happened that a dozen members of the garrison gathered, from

the lips of a participant, stirring particulars of a spirited chase and

fight that set soldiers to cheering and women and children to

extravagant scenes of rejoicing before the official head of the garrison

was fairly ready to give out the news. Kennedy had taken satisfaction

for the commander's slights by telling the tidings broadcast to the

crowd that quickly gathered, and, in three minutes, the word was flying

from lip to lip that the troops had run down Lame Wolf's main village

after an all day, all night rush to head them off, and that with very

small loss they had been able to capture many of the families and to

scatter the warriors among the hills. In brief, while Henry, with the

main body, had followed the trail of the fighting band, Webb had been

detached and, with two squadrons, had ridden hard after a Shoshone guide

who led them by a short cut through the range and enabled them to pounce

on the village where were most of Lame Wolf's noncombatants, guarded

only by a small party of warriors, and, while Captains Billings and Ray

with their troops remained in charge of these captives, Webb, with Blake

and the others had pushed on in pursuit of certain braves who had

scampered into the thick of the hills, carrying a few of the wounded and

prisoners with them. Among those captured, or recaptured, were Mr. Hay

and Crapaud. Among those who had been spirited away was Nanette Flower.

This seemed strange and unaccountable.



And yet Blake had found time to write to his winsome wife,--to send her

an important missive and most important bit of news. It was with these

she came running in to Mrs. Ray before the latter had time to half read

the long letter received from her soldier husband, and we take the facts

in the order of their revelation.



"Think of it, Maidie!" she cried. "Think of it! Gerald's first words,

almost, are 'Take good care of that pouch and contents,' and now pouch

and contents are gone! Whoever dreamed that they would be of such

consequence? He says the newspaper will explain."



And presently the two bonny heads were bent over the big sheets of a

dingy, grimy copy of a Philadelphia daily, and there, on an inner page,

heavily marked, appeared a strange item, and this Quaker City journal

had been picked up in an Ogalalla camp. The item read as follows:



AN UNTAMED SIOUX



The authorities of the Carlisle School and the police of Harrisburg

are hunting high and low for a young Indian known to the records of

the Academy as Ralph Moreau, but borne on the payrolls of Buffalo

Bill's Wild West aggregation as Eagle Wing--a youth who is credited

with having given the renowned scout-showman more trouble than all

his braves, bronchos and "busters" thereof combined. Being of

superb physique and a daring horseman, Moreau had been forgiven

many a peccadillo, and had followed the fortunes of the show two

consecutive summers until Cody finally had to get rid of him as an

intolerable nuisance.



It seems that when a lad of eighteen, "Eagle Wing" had been sent to

Carlisle, where he ran the gamut of scrapes of every conceivable

kind. He spoke English picked up about the agencies; had

influential friends and, in some clandestine way, received

occasional supplies of money that enabled him to take French leave

when he felt like it. He was sent back from Carlisle to Dakota as

irreclaimable, and after a year or two on his native heath,

reappeared among the haunts of civilization as one of Buffalo

Bill's warriors. Bill discharged him at Cincinnati and, at the

instance of the Indian Bureau, he was again placed at Carlisle,

only to repeat on a larger scale his earlier exploits and secure a

second transfer to the Plains, where his opportunities for

devilment were limited. Then Cody was induced to take him on again

by profuse promises of good behavior, which were kept until

Pennsylvania soil was reached two weeks ago, when he broke loose

again; was seen in store clothes around West Philadelphia for a few

days, plentifully supplied with money, and next he turned up in the

streets of Carlisle, where he assaulted an attache of the school,

whose life was barely saved by the prompt efforts of other Indian

students. Moreau escaped to Harrisburg, which he proceeded to paint

his favorite color that very night, and wound up the entertainment

by galloping away on the horse of a prominent official, who had

essayed to escort him back to Carlisle. It is believed that he is

now in hiding somewhere about the suburbs, and that an innate

propensity for devilment will speedily betray him to the clutches

of the law.



A few moments after reading this oddly interesting story the two friends

were in consultation with Mrs. Dade, who, in turn, called in Dr. Waller,

just returning from the hospital and a not too satisfactory visit to Mr.

Field. There had been a slight change for the better in the condition of

General Field that had enabled Dr. Lorain of Fort Russell and a local

physician to arrange for his speedy transfer to Cheyenne. This had in a

measure relieved the anxiety of Waller's patient, but never yet had the

veteran practitioner permitted him to know that he was practically a

prisoner as well as a patient. Waller feared the result on so

high-strung a temperament, and had made young Field believe that, when

strong and well enough to attempt the journey, he should be sent to Rock

Springs. Indeed, Dr. Waller had no intention of submitting to Major

Flint's decision as final. He had written personally to the medical

director of the department, acquainting him with the facts, and,

meanwhile, had withdrawn himself as far as possible, officially and

socially, from the limited circle in which moved his perturbed

commanding officer.



He was at a distant point of the garrison, therefore, and listening to

the excited and vehement comments of the younger of the three women upon

this strange newspaper story, and its possible connection with matters

at Frayne, at the moment when a dramatic scene was being enacted over

beyond the guard-house.



Kennedy was still the center of a little group of eager listeners when

Pink Marble, factotum of the trader's store, came hurrying forth from

the adjutant's office, speedily followed by Major Flint. "You may tell

Mrs. Hay that while I cannot permit her to visit the prisoner," he

called after the clerk, "I will send the girl over--under suitable

guard."



To this Mr. Marble merely shrugged his shoulders and went on. He fancied

Flint no more than did the relics of the original garrison. A little

later Flint personally gave an order to the sergeant of the guard and

then came commotion.



First there were stifled sounds of scuffle from the interior of the

guard-house; then shrill, wrathful screams; then a woman's voice

unlifted in wild upbraidings in an unknown tongue, at sound of which

Trooper Kennedy dropped his rein and his jaw, stood staring one minute;

then, with the exclamation: "Mother of God, but I know that woman!"

burst his way through the crowd and ran toward the old log blockhouse at

the gate,--the temporary post of the guard. Just as he turned the corner

of the building, almost stumbling against the post commander, there came

bursting forth from the dark interior a young woman of the Sioux,

daring, furious, raging, and, breaking loose from the grasp of the two

luckless soldiers who had her by the arms, away she darted down the

road, still screaming like some infuriated child, and rushed straight

for the open gateway of the Hays. Of course the guard hastened in

pursuit, the major shouting "Stop her! Catch her!" and the men striving

to appear to obey, yet shirking the feat of seizing the fleeing woman.

Fancy, then, the amaze of the swiftly following spectators when the

trader's front door was thrown wide open and Mrs. Hay herself sprang

forth. Another instant and the two women had met at the gate. Another

instant still, and, with one motherly arm twining about the quivering,

panting, pleading girl and straining her to the motherly heart, Mrs.

Hay's right hand and arm flew up in the superb gesture known the wide

frontier over as the Indian signal "Halt!" And halt they did, every

mother's son save Kennedy, who sprang to the side of the girl and faced

the men in blue. And then another woman's voice, rich, deep, ringing,

powerful, fell on the ears of the amazed, swift-gathering throng, with

the marvellous order: "Stand where you are! You shan't touch a hair of

her head! She's a chief's daughter. She's my own kin and I'll answer for

her to the general himself. As for you," she added, turning now and

glaring straight at the astounded Flint, all the pent-up sense of wrath,

indignity, shame and wrong overmastering any thought of prudence or of

"the divinity that doth hedge" the commanding officer, "As for you," she

cried, "I pity you when our own get back again! God help you, Stanley

Flint, the moment my husband sets eyes on you. D'you know the message

that came to him this day?" And now the words rang louder and clearer,

as she addressed the throng. "I do, and so do officers and gentlemen

who'd be shamed to have to shake hands with such as he. He's got my

husband's note about him now, and what my husband wrote was this--'I

charge myself with every dollar you charge to Field, and with the

further obligation of thrashing you on sight'--and, mark you, he'll do

it!"